A Case of Heart Trouble Read online

“That sounds marvellous,” she declared. “I’ve never lived very much in the country myself, but I’ve always craved to do so. My people are Londoners, I’m afraid . . . what you’d call ‘Cits’.”

  “You don’t look like a Cit,” he told her. “You look like a spring morning in the flower garden at Loring ... or you would if you weren’t wearing that uniform.” She colored, and he apologized dryly. “I shouldn’t pay compliments like that to my nurse, should I? Particularly when she’s unchaperoned. However, my aunt is a proper old dragon, so don’t worry.”

  “I’m not,” she confessed, the color fading, although she found it a little difficult to meet a certain dry twinkle in his eyes. “And what about your daughter?” she asked. “Does she spend a lot of time at Loring?”

  “Only during school holidays,” he replied curtly. “She’s at school on the south coast, as I expect you know.”

  “Yes. The school matron brought her to see you when you were

  “On the danger list?” He grinned. “Poor child, I hope they didn’t tell her I was likely to depart this life at any moment!”

  “Of course not. But she realized you were very ill. She’s very pretty,” she added, as if she hoped to draw him still further. “And not very old, to be at boarding school, is she?”

  He looked away from her. His face looked suddenly shut in and cold.

  “She’s nearly eight,” he replied. “And she gets her looks from her mother.”

  “I see,” she said.

  Barely half an hour later he was demanding the drink he had been looking forward to from the moment they stopped at the inn, and she agreed to allow him a very small one. She declined to have anything herself, however, and insisted that he went upstairs to his room and to bed immediately after it. He protested, grumblingly.

  “But I thought we were going to have dinner downstairs together tonight. They’ve a wonderful oak-panelled dining room here, and I thought we might run to a bottle of champagne. . . .”

  He was teasing her, she knew, hoping to see her trained hackles rise, but she disappointed him by merely saying firmly:

  “Oh, no. Nothing of that sort yet.”

  “I’ve a nasty feeling you’re going to turn out to be a dragon, like my aunt,” he said peevishly.

  She thrust a thermometer into his mouth, in order to be on the safe side.

  “I may be only a first-year nurse, but I know my job,” she said quietly.

  “So it seems,” he returned, speaking with difficulty because of the thermometer. “Thank heavens I didn’t pick on a second- or third-year one.” The next day they arrived at Loring Court, and the

  doctor’s aunt came out to welcome them. The little village of Loring was so tiny, and huddled so picturesquely in a pocket of the moors, that Dallas thought she was immensely fortunate to have travelled north to see it. It had all the ageless charm of moorland villages, and the church was pure Norman, with a squat tower that looked out across the moor. Loring Court was mellow as a gem in an old-fashioned setting in the clear, pale light of noon. One wall was entirely covered in a creeper that glowered like blood against the light, there were some magnificent

  trees in the drive, and the gardens were full of autumnal beauty.

  Mrs. Letitia Loring—Aunt Letty—failed to strike Dallas as having very much in common with a dragon. She was plump and white-headed, placid and, to judge by her expression, benevolent, and she welcomed her nephew with affection and a kind of amiable concern for his welfare.

  A special lunch had been prepared for them, and the cook was upset when the returning master seemed to have little appetite for it. He was too exhausted to take his customary place in the dining room—one of the most beautiful, mellow rooms Dallas had ever seen—and instead he had it on a tray in the library. Even so, the tray was scarcely touched when it was removed, and Aunt Letty looked at Dallas meaningfully. The look said plainly, he has a long way to go yet before he’s fit! This is going to be rather a trying convalescence for everyone!

  Dallas was afraid it was . . . but she was thinking of the patient, and not of herself. Martin Loring was naturally, she had decided, rather a moody man, and his accident had done something to deprive him of a certain zest for life which he had previously known. Or she imagined it had! he couldn’t always have been as irritable and impatient, as alternately sunk in fits of deep despondency and harsh cynicism as he was now. For the last few miles of -the journey from London he had been almost literally consumed with impatience to be home . . . and then, when the car turned in at the gates, and he saw it for the first time for months, he had turned his face to the wall, as it were, and declined to be thrilled because they had arrived.

  Aunt Letty drew Dallas out into the hall when she had settled her patient on a long, comfortable couch in front of a brightly burning log fire in the library, once his tray had been removed, and she looked her up and down a little curiously before she spoke.

  “I’ve made arrangements, Nurse, for my nephew to have his old suite in the west wing . . . the one he had, that is, before he was married. It’s convenient, and there’s a pleasant room which I thought you would occupy, and which connects with his bedroom.” She coughed slightly. “I must confess I expected to see someone older than you are. One always thinks of nurses as being sort of seasoned and practical.”

  „ I hope you’ll find I’m completely practical,” Dallas replied, understanding perfectly what she meant. “And although I’m not precisely seasoned, I’ve done a year’s full training.”

  Mrs. Loring coughed again.

  “I’m a little surprised that Matron didn’t pick on someone—or

  advise someone—older.”

  Dallas smiled very slightly.

  “I’m afraid your nephew picked on me himself, Mrs. Loring. Since you are his aunt you must be well aware that he isn’t easily influenced once his mind is made up.”

  “How right you are,” Mrs. Loring agreed, in a dry tone. “For want of a better word I’d say he’s downright pigheaded when-he’s well and possibly ten times more pigheaded when he’s ill.”

  She showed Dallas the suite she was to share with her patient, and it was certainly very attractive, with large windows overlooking the lawns and the shrubberies, and furnished in a manner that would ensure them the very maximum amount of comfort. In Dallas’s own bedroom there was so much wardrobe space that her few frocks looked lost when she had hung them up in it, and her drawers were intended to hold piles of filmy underwear, and not the easily laundered nylon essentials she had brought with her.

  Even her dressing gown looked slightly apologetic hanging on the gleaming, white-painted door, and she thought of other dressing gowns that must have hung there from time to time, and was sure they were far more elegant.

  Having emptied her cases and stowed away her things, she went out into the garden. She could see the rooms she had just left, in the wing of the house that was more Queen Anne than Tudor— and the house itself was largely Tudor—and she wondered why Mrs. Loring had decided her nephew would raise no objections to being deprived of the benefits of his rightful quarters in the house, and in any case, why there was never any mention of his wife. Surely, if he was on good terms with his wife, she would have been to visit him long before this? But it was fairly obvious she no longer resided in Loring Court. Or she was not a resident at the moment.

  When she went in for tea Dallas had acquired a delightful color in her face, and her hair was slightly blown about by the warm September breeze. She had wandered in a centuries-old rose-garden, where the air was full of perfume, walked beside a reed- fringed lake that had a small island and a summerhouse in the middle of it, lingered in the sunshine on the terrace, and now she was ready for the typical afternoon tea that she was certain would be served in this house, complete with silver teapot, cream jug, etc., and the usual assortment of little cakes and gateaux.

  But first she had to make certain that her patient was ready for his tea, too. He was lying regarding the fire
with a slightly lowering expression when she entered the room, but it lifted at once, and he smiled when he recognized her.

  “So there you are, Nurse!” he said. His eyes took in the slight confusion of the hair under her cap, the rosy glow in her cheeks. “Country air suits you, Nurse,” he remarked, quietly. “But didn’t I tell you to get out of that uniform?”

  She made a little gesture with her hands.

  “Please don’t ask me to do the impossible, Doctor,” she begged. “Your aunt is already having serious misgivings because I look so young, and if, in addition to looking young, I look casual and incompetent, I think she’ll be quite likely to ring up the nursing home and ask for a replacement.”

  He scowled darkly.

  “I told you my aunt was a nuisance,” he said. “She doesn’t mean to interfere . . . but she constantly does. She’s the most amiable person in the world, if you’re on the right side of her, but once you offend her good taste, or her sense of correctness, she jibs. However, there’ll be no question of anyone replacing you. You can take my word for that.”

  “And you won’t mind if I stick to my uniform? I’d feel entirely wrong without it, honestly I would.” “Then you shall wear it during the peak hours of the day, and in the evening you can put on a

  frock. How’s that?” “In the evening I shall still be on duty,” she reminded him.

  He sighed.

  “Humor me a little. If you don’t wish to retard my progress, humor me sometimes ... at least. I know I’m a difficult man, but I usually have a reason for being difficult.”

  “Then I’ll put on a frock the first night you stay up for dinner. “I’m staying up tonight.”

  “Oh, no! ”

  The usual argument took place, and in the end he was quite glad to allow her to assist him upstairs to his room. He protested when she assisted him to undress, and when at last he lay relaxed in his comfortable bed with the half tester he looked up at her with a curious darkness in his deep grey eyes, so that in the early sunset light they appeared more navy blue than grey.

  „Why should a slip of a thing like you have to wait on me hand and foot?” he demanded. “It makes me feel depraved, somehow.” “Don’t be ridiculous, Doctor,” she returned gently. “It’s what I’ve been trained for, and the reason why I’m here.”

  “But you're so inadequate, somehow ... I mean physically. There’s so little of you.” His eyes fastened on a honey-gold curl, that was bobbing against her cheek. “And I’m over six feet. A slab of incompetence at the moment.”

  “We’ll soon put that right,” she reassured him, shaking up the pillows behind his dark head. “In this wonderful air, and with nothing to do all day but grow fit and well again, we’ll have you one hundred per cent fit in no time at all.”

  “And what if I have to walk with a stick for the rest of my life?”

  “You won’t. You know that.”

  “But I might. There’s always a possibility that I might.” She realized, suddenly, that he was trying to arouse her sympathy, and she laughed softly.

  “In that case we’ll have to make sure that you walk with a very elegant stick . . . ebony, with a gold top on it!”

  He frowned at her.

  “You’re unsympathetic, woman. All nurses are. I’d like to have someone around me who can be kind sometimes, and feel deep pity for me.”

  “I do feel deep pity for you.”

  But her green eyes were still laughing at him, and he caught her hand and held on to it tightly.

  “What is your name, Nurse? Apart from Drew, I mean.” “Dallas,” she told him. “Dallas Drew.”

  He considered it for a moment, and then nodded approval.

  “I like it,” he said. “It’s unusual, and it suits you.”

  His eyes were so dark, and they remained fixed so embarrassingly on her face, that she turned away and picked up a photograph that was standing on the table beside his bed. It was the photograph of an exceptionally lovely young woman with dark hair and eyes, who had scrawled her name in the corner of it, and added an effusive:

  “Darling, I love you. Maureen.”

  “Who—who is this?” she asked, realizing she had done the wrong thing, for she hadn’t mean to pick up that photograph, and she certainly hadn’t meant to enquire who it was.

  He took it out of her hand and laid it face down on the table. His face was so dark she thought she had committed a crime.

  “That’s Aunt Letty, of course,” he said, “putting photographs beside my bed. She knows that I loathe false sentiment. Here,” he picked up the photograph again and thrust it into her hand, “take it down to the library and put it away in a drawer of the desk, will you? You can leave the other one.”

  The other one was so plainly a photograph of his daughter, Stephanie, that she didn’t need to ask any questions about her. And in any case, she wouldn’t have dared to do so.

  He turned his face away from her, and shut his eyes.

  “I think I shall go to sleep,” he said. “I don’t think I want any dinner.”

  “But of course you must have your dinner, Doctor. You had hardly any lunch.” For the first time, as she looked down at him, her heart began to ache a little ... for him. She had felt sorry for him before, sympathized with him when he had his spasms of pain, and always she was aware of his intense masculine attraction. But now, for the first time, there was something else . . . something that tugged at her heartstrings.

  His face was curiously vulnerable. The mouth was harsh at times, often cynical, but she knew it could soften magically for patients . . . and just now it had a queer, defeated look about it. His eyelashes, when he closed his eyes, looked ridiculously thick and dark resting on his hollow cheeks.

  She murmured to him, because he wouldn’t open his eyes:

  “I’ll bring up your tray myself, and I might even change into a dress, if—if it will divert you at all! ”

  He opened his eyes at once, and they were bright and warm again.

  “What kind of a dress?”

  “Oh, nothing spectacular. A tailored silk.”

  He shook his head.

  “Not good enough.”

  “A black cocktail dress?”

  “Yes,” he smiled. “That would suit you. With your hair, and those extraordinary eyes! ”

  But when she went down to dinner in the black cocktail dress she was not at all sure how she was going to be received by Mrs. Loring. But fortunately that good lady was herself wearing black velvet and pearls, and she seemed to think it quite natural that the nurse should change out of her uniform in the evenings.

  “You look very nice,” she said. Then she looked at Nurse Drew again. “Very nice!” she repeated.

  C H A P T E R T H R E E FOR the first few days after his return to his old home Martin Loring made no particular progress. He was moody, and difficult to cope with, and he constantly flouted Nurse Drew’s authority. When she tried to insist on hospital discipline he rebelled and declared that he was tired of discipline, and in any case he was tired of being an invalid. He wanted to get back to his normal routine, and to be

  himself again.

  This, Dallas pointed out, was unlikely, when the smallest setback cast him into the deeps of depression, and he was unwilling to co-operate with those who wanted to help him. Even his aunt was only thinking of relieving the tedium when she offered to play chess with him, but the very thought of playing chess put his teeth on edge. He had always been active, and he didn’t take kindly to lying about on drawing-room sofas, or chaises-lounges out of doors when the weather was fine.

  But to Dallas, who had had so few opportunities in her life to experience the delights of the country, this was a wonderful opportunity to take long walks when she was off duty, and she regularly took them— at least one long walk every day—although her patient protested that, not being country bred, she might land herself in difficulties on one of these lonely marathons.

  It seemed to Dallas that he disliked to see
her come in, slightly muddied, with glowing cheeks and bright eyes, the odd burr or bramble sticking to her. And although she brought a breath of wholesome moorland air in with her, and as a result of it the slightly stuffy atmosphere of the library where he passed most of his time was temporarily sweetened, his expression seldom lightened on her return. And although he asked her politely enough whether she had enjoyed her walk, she could tell by the queer glint in his eyes that he hoped, perversely, that she hadn’t.

  The afternoon when she arrived back in a car driven by a good looking young man who had claimed to be his second cousin, he developed more than a glint in his eye. The young man, who had introduced himself to Dallas as Brent Rutherford, explained that he had come upon Nurse Drew, while she was still several miles from home, sitting at the side of the road and nursing a slightly twisted ankle. She had climbed a five-barred gate, missed one of the cross pieces of the gate, and slid down into the ditch.

  But she assured Dr. Loring that there was nothing in the least wrong with her ankle. The slight twinge had passed, and it was as good as new, but she was very grateful to Mr. Rutherford for giving her the lift.

  “And I'm quite certain Mr. Rutherford is very grateful to you for providing him with the opportunity to offer you a lift,” Martin returned, the asperity of his tone so unmistakable, and causing her such profound surprise that she colored brilliantly.

  Brent Rutherford sat down on the arm of a chair near him, and solemnly shook his head at him.

  “You mustn't get yourself het up like this, old chap,” he warned. “Just because you can’t take exercise yourself, you mustn’t veto it for other people. And Nurse Drew assures me that she adores exercise.”

  Martin Loring looked away from the two of them to the tea-trolley that had just been wheeled into the room, and something about the bleakness of the glance he cast at his housekeeper’s efforts to maintain his appetite caused Dallas to step forward hurriedly and enquire anxiously whether anything was wrong.

  “You have been all right this afternoon, haven't you?” she asked. “You haven’t had any pain, or anything like that?”